Why today's Google Doodle is celebrating pizza and how to play the puzzle game

Today’s Google Doodle is celebrating one of the world’s most popular foods – pizza.

The interactive Doodle tasks you with slicing up a range of pizzas, from classics like margherita and pepperoni to more off the board choices, like Hawaiian and teriyaki mayonnaise.

Why is there a pizza Google Doodle?

Google says: “Today’s interactive Doodle celebrates one of the world’s most popular dishes – pizza! On this day in 2007, the culinary art of Neapolitan ‘pizzaiuolo’ was inscribed on the Unesco Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

“This pizza puzzle game features a few of the most beloved pizza toppings from all over the world and challenges you to slice based on the type of pizza ordered. But keep a close eye on the requested toppings and number of slices—the more accurate the order, the more stars you earn!

“Although flatbread with toppings has been consumed for centuries in ancient civilisations from Egypt to Rome, the southwestern Italian city of Naples is widely credited as the birthplace of the pizza known today (dough layered with tomatoes and cheese) in the late 1700s. It’s here that the story of pizza begins: one that is baked together with centuries of global migration, economic development, and technological evolution.

“Today, an estimated five billion pizzas (350 slices per second in the US alone) are consumed internationally each year. No matter how you slice it, pizza is here to stay!”

The Doodle makes you use your mouse to slice up a virtual pizza, and you get stars depending on how well you follow the instructions.

A pizzaiuolo is the Italian name for a specialist pizza chef.

Unesco explains: “The art of the Neapolitan ‘Pizzaiuolo’ is a culinary practice comprising four different phases relating to the preparation of the dough and its baking in a wood-fired oven, involving a rotatory movement by the baker.

“The element originates in Naples, the capital of the Campania region, where about 3,000 Pizzaiuoli now live and perform.

“Pizzaiuoli are a living link for the communities concerned. There are three primary categories of bearers – the master pizzaiuolo, the pizzaiuolo and the baker – as well as the families in Naples who reproduce the art in their own homes.”